Jay > Jay's Quotes

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Work: A Story of Experience

“Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes Run mad, as if mad is a different direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad you don't go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in.”
― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

“No matter how long we exist, we have our memories. Points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems.”
― Anne Rice, Blood And Gold

“The more I study men, the more I realize that they are nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be spankable.”
― Jean Webster, Dear Enemy

“The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way. The whole secret is in being pliable.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“The time flies. The time flies feed on rotting clocks.”
― Craig Clevenger, Dermaphoria

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
― Mark Twain

“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”
― Mark Twain

“Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”
― Mark Twain

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”
― Mark Twain

“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?”
― Mark Twain

“And so it goes...”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins.”
― Arthur G. Lewis, Stub Ends of Thought and Verse

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
― Allen Saunders

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
― Philip K. Dick, VALIS

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“Every hour wounds. The last one kills.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose.”
― Neil Gaiman